Power of Choice

Welcome to this week's message from the Church at Chelsea Westover.

Our core values are vibrant worship, intimate fellowship, fulfilling service, and clear biblical truth.

We pray that this message changes your life.

Let's tune in to today's message and see what God has in store for you.

If you got a Bible, turn your Bible to Joshua chapter 24 as we get into this message.

Joshua 24 · chapter mention

I'm excited to be preaching.

I'm honored and privileged to be in this place.

And I don't I don't know how much I can speak to that as to what it means, Dr.

Danny Lovitt and his wife, what they've meant to Heather and myself in our ministry for 10 years in Indiana, getting to know them and for God opening this door.

We've almost been in this church for a year.

And uh it really is.

It's like a kind of you would say, like a star-struck thing to be looking into this pastor who I've known and admired, and to be able to speak before you today is such an honor, and uh, and excited to share God's word.

And uh we want to say hi to you, Pastor Danny, Miss Susan, and uh hope you enjoy your week.

And um we've got a great church and we've got a great pastor, and we're just getting started, so it's excited to be in this place at Three Years Young and Rolling.

In Joshua chapter 24, I want to share with you this morning the message called the power of choice.

Joshua 24 · chapter mention

In every story, there's four parts.

In every story, and as you read through different stories, these are the four parts.

There's the circumstances, which is your setting.

It's where you're at.

For you and your story, of your life right now, your setting is right here.

Westover and Chelsea, Alabama, and the things happening around you.

That is the circumstances.

And in every story, there's the second part, which is the conflict.

And if you're born today, you have conflict.

You didn't choose it, but there's a sin versus flesh conflict that wages a war for every person living.

And so there's conflict, and then there's the choice.

This is the climax point of the story.

The point of decision in your story that will share what happens to the end of your story, the determination in your story that resolves the end of the story, and then there's that last part, the commitment.

When people revisit the story of your life, what will be said of the commitment?

And so we're going to look at those four things and really key in today on the most important part of the story, which is the choice.

The climactic part of your story where you've made a choice that determines the end of your story.

C.

S.

Lewis said this in the book Joyful Christian the odd thing before God closed in on me, I was offered what now appears a moment of wholly free choice.

In a sense, I became aware that I was holding something back, holding on to something, or shutting something out.

If you like, it was like I was wearing some stiff clothing, like a corset, or even a suit of armor.

I felt myself being there and then given the free choice.

I could open the door or I could keep it shut.

I could unbuckle the armor or keep it.

Neither choice was presented as a duty, yet the choice appeared to be momentous, life-altering, and I chose to unbuckle, to loosen the rein.

As an avid atheist and an unbeliever, at that point in my life, at every turn, the God I did not believe in until that moment, everywhere and in every place said, I am that I am, that I am, that I am.

If you're seeking truth, the choice is clear.

Church, you know you have the power to choose, and nobody can take that power away from you.

You have that power.

Say this to somebody next to you I have the power.

You've got the power.

Nobody can take that.

You don't have power over people, places, or things, but you have the power to choose.

There's great power in that.

You know, in the words that you choose to say every day, have power to lift somebody up, have power to tear somebody down.

The way that you live your life has power to motivate somebody or to distract somebody.

You have power in your choice.

Church, we're either going to choose to be the best generation that there's ever been, or we're going to be the last.

And we've got that power.

The choice you make today, in this hour, might affect the rest of your story.

We're going to pray and then we're going to look at Joshua chapter 24.

Joshua 24 · chapter mention

Father, I pray this morning that as we look at this great story of choice, God, that you would move in our hearts.

God help us.

I know that there's some folks in this city, in this county, God, in this church, who are on the fence, God, who are teetering about choice.

And God, we desperately need some full court followers for Jesus Christ who aren't on that fence anymore.

Who are ready to wave the white flag of surrender, God and follow you.

So God, I pray that you would move in this message in Jesus' name.

Amen.

So in Joshua 24, if you look at verse number one as we get started, and the first part of that is the circumstances.

We see the circumstances in Joshua's story.

And it says in 24, verse 1, Then Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem and called for the elders of Israel, for their heads, for their judges, and for their officers, and they presented themselves before God.

The circumstances here, the Hebrew word for circumstances is the same as the word open, which means the wheel, literally the wheel that's moving the wagon, it's moving things around you, the wheel that's moving that transportation.

And so the word open means the wheel, the circumstance around you, what's happening around you.

And so what happens here with Joshua, the first part is he gives a rally cry.

And Joshua calls all the people together, all the heads, all the important people.

And he does this strangely in chapter 23.

He gives what's called the farewell address in chapter 23, and he says in verse 3 of chapter 23, I am now old in age, and he gives them a great farewell speech.

And then something happens between chapter 23 and 24, where something tugs at Joshua when he says, That wasn't enough.

And so he gathers everybody back together for one more farewell, this rally cry.

And he gathers all these important people once again, and he gathers them to a city called Shechem, the refuge city.

And I want you to turn to Genesis chapter 12, just to look a little background on the city of Shechem and see why it's so important that he called them to this city.

Genesis 12 · chapter mention

First of all, a refuge city, after the battles were all done, there were some cities pulled apart that if a man committed a crime by accident, there was refuge cities, and so a man might have accidentally murdered somebody or something happened by accident, and they could go to the refuge city and not be murdered by someone else, or not be taken advantage because of an accident.

And so this city was known for a place of justice where a priest would come and help make a judgment, and so it was a safe place.

And so they gathered together at Shechem.

Look at uh Genesis chapter 12, verses 6 through 8 says, Abraham passed through the land to the place of Shechem, as far as the Terebith tree of Mora, and the Canaanites were there in that land.

Genesis 12:6–8

Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, To your descendants, I will give this land.

And there he built an altar to the Lord, who appeared to him, and he moved from there to the mountain east of Bethel.

And so this city was a city of promise, and as the Israelites would look back, on this city, it was a city where they looked unto Abraham, their father, where the promise was made that Abraham would be the father of many people, and so this was a city of promise.

If you look in the New Testament, you can turn to John chapter 4, verse 5, it's mentioned again as a city of living water.

John 4:5

This is the same city that Jesus is found conversing with the woman at the well.

And it's called in the New Testament, John 4 5, Sichar.

The city of Sichar is the same city that is Shechem.

And this is the place where Jesus told the woman at the well who was lost, I am he who gives living water, he who gives life.

And so it's important that in these circumstances that we understand when Joshua gives this rally cry, and then he takes the people to a place of promise, a place of refuge.

He gathers them together to the place of living water.

And then I want you to get a little background on who Joshua was.

Joshua was the man of resolute courage.

And uh as I was thinking about the resolute courage of Joshua this past week, we got to take a vacation.

And uh it's funny watching my boys grow up, and I have a son, Weston, who's three years old.

And uh Weston, when you take him to take a bath, okay, he loses his mind if any water, when you shampoo his hair, if any water starts coming down into his eyes, okay?

I mean just a little bit of water, and he starts yelling, towel, towel, he wants a towel.

He actually says, tower, tower, and so that's Weston in the bathtub.

And so fast forward, we go to the uh the beach this past week, and there's a great big water slide.

And Weston, now you could see it on his eyes.

Man, he wants to get on that thing.

He's got his this thing called a puddle jumper.

They're amazing.

And so, anyway, the first couple times he had to he had to have daddy to go down.

So I'm sitting with him and I'm riding down this thing, and it has it's actually pretty fast, takes a couple of spins, and then it drops off into the pool.

And so um I watched his courage build in him.

So that happened the first couple times, and then I kind of, you know, in my own laziness, wanting to be in the water, said, Why don't you try it by yourself?

You're a big boy.

And and and finally, I don't know how many times I went down with it.

Finally, he did try.

I said, I'll catch you at the bottom.

And so that worked out.

So he gets on, and I watch, and he's flying, man.

And he comes down his eyes, or the first couple times, it's really big, and I catch him, and he's like, Okay, okay, I'm safe.

And so for a while I had to catch him.

And then I got thinking, why don't I just back up?

I'll stand in sight and let him see me, but just back up and let him hit the water.

And so that's what I did, and he hit the water, and I said, Wow, you're a big boy, look at what you did.

He said, Yeah, I'm a big boy.

I didn't even need you to catch me.

And so from that point on, Weston was good to go.

He's up and down that slide.

I didn't have to ride with him, I didn't have to catch him, but his courage just mounted, and it was kind of funny.

Twice this happened, but a lady was walking around the slide with Weston, and she said, Hey little man, and he corrected her.

He said, I'm a big boy.

And and then he said, he said, My name is Weston.

She said, Okay, hi, Weston.

This lady was telling me this later, and and Heather calls him Boo-Boo.

He said, My name is Weston.

He said, and he said, My friends call me Boo-Boo Bear.

So, but watching that courage mount in a three-year-old was something to behold.

Now, Joshua, if you looked at Numbers 14, 6 through 10, and for time we we won't go there, but it's a story of Joshua and Caleb, and when the people were supposed to go in to the promised land, and there were these two guys, Joshua and Caleb.

There's 12 spies sent in to look at the land.

And one of the two was Joshua, and we see Joshua, a man courageous in conviction.

Everybody else comes back and says, No, we can't do it.

The giants are too big.

There's no way that we can get in this land, we're not ready for battle.

And Joshua and Caleb say, We can do this.

I don't know how we can do it, but we can get in.

The land is great with milk and honey, and we can take it.

The courage had always been there, the resolute courage, courage and conviction.

In Joshua chapter 6, you can turn your Bibles over there.

Joshua 6 · chapter mention

We see that Joshua was courageous in command.

Not only was he courageous in conviction, but when it came time for the battle to happen, you can look all through the story of Jericho in Joshua chapter six, and it says that Joshua told his men, as the Lord spoke to him, to go out and march around the city six days, one time a day, and on the seventh day to march around seven times, and after the seventh time to let out a loud trumpet blast, and the walls would fall down.

Now, if you're the commander of that army and that's your plan before your people, you probably feel a little bit scared, announcing your battle plan to your people.

Okay, we're gonna march around the wall, and on the seventh day, after seven times marching, it's just gonna fall.

And the men are looking at you, this is our plan.

This is what we're gonna do.

That's right, what's plan B?

But he was courageous, he just believed enough in the God that he served that it would happen.

And we know the story.

After that seventh time and that loud blast, the walls came tumbling down, and Joshua and the men went in and took over the land.

And it wasn't just that land, we kind of end the story there, but if you look throughout Joshua, battle after battle happened.

Thirty-one kings were conquered.

Now, when we go to war as Americans, one war seems like enough.

Am I right?

31 wars happened, and Joshua takes his men through.

If you talk to a veteran and they've been to a couple of wars, you know, that's a big story, but 31.

That they take over land after land after land.

And so this man was, I want you to see the picture of who he was.

He's very courageous in command.

And they went and they went, and then it wasn't just in command, it had a lot to do with who he believed in.

Look at Joshua chapter 10.

Joshua 10 · chapter mention

If you go over to verse number 12 in Joshua chapter 10, we see that Joshua was courageous in conviction and command, but courageous in calling.

Joshua 10 · chapter mention

He was courageous in the God he called to.

Look at what it says in verse 12 and 13.

It says, Then Joshua spoke to the Lord in the day when the Lord delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel.

And he said in the sight of Israel, listen to this Son, stand still over Gibeon, and the moon in the valley of Agilon.

So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, till the people had revenge upon their enemies.

Look at verse 14.

And there has been no day like that before it or after it, that the Lord heeded the voice of a man.

Key words there.

The Lord heeded the voice of a man.

Joshua was courageous in his calling.

He prayed for the sun to stand still, and it says it did for the time of a full day, so that they could win that battle.

So I want you to understand the circumstances of the situation, the rally cry, he pulls them to Shechem, and then who he was encouraged.

Because next, Joshua gives this remembrance charge.

Joshua gathers them all together and he gives them a sermon to remember.

He begins by telling them about God's dependability.

And I was thinking about I love baseball, love watching baseball.

I'm a big Red Sox fan, but where I grew up, um Baltimore Orioles was kind of a big deal.

And uh back in that day, Cal Ripkin Jr.

was the guy to keep um track on.

He was a 19-time All-Star, a two-time MVP.

He won a World Series title.

But that wasn't what he was known for.

Cal Ripkin is most known for an incredible streak of dependability.

For 17 years, he played baseball every single game in a season that goes between 160 to 180 games without missing one game, 17 years.

I don't know how many of you here have been to work 17 years and hadn't missed a day.

That's a pretty good streak.

2,632 straight games he played.

Now that's pretty dependable.

That's someone you can count on.

But can I tell you about my God?

Can I tell you about my God?

Look at verses 7 and 8 in Joshua 24.

Because this is where Joshua gets into charge in the people.

He gets them all together, he's got them ready, and then he lets loose.

He says, This.

So the people cried out in verse 7, and he put darkness between them and the Egyptians, and brought the sea upon them and covered them.

And your eyes saw what I, talking about Jesus, what God had done, what I did in Egypt.

Then you dwelt in the wilderness for a long time.

Verse 8 says, And I brought you into the land of the Amorites.

And again down there in verse 8 says, But I gave them into your hand.

Did he win all those battles on his own?

No.

I, the Lord, did this.

And it says in verse 10, but I would not listen to Balaam, therefore he continued to bless you.

So I delivered you out of his hand.

Verse 11, then you went over the Jordan and came to Jericho.

And the men of Jericho fossil fought against you, and the Amorites and the Perizzites and the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Gergesh, all the but I delivered them into your hand.

I.

Verse 12 says, I sent the hornet before you, which drove them out from you.

Verse 13, I have given you a land for which you did not labor, and cities which you didn't build, and you dwell in them.

He says, Remember his dependability?

Remember what he did?

We won all those battles, but remember how we did it.

It was God's dependability.

It was what God did in us.

And through all those circumstances, Joshua reminds him not only of God's dependability, but he also takes him to a point to remember his dominion.

It wasn't just that God was dependable for them, it was that God had dominion and sovereignty over everything.

And so that's the next point.

Remember God's dominion.

The word dominion means the power or right to govern and control.

There's only one person that has that, that can say that.

There's only one person that has right, the power and right to govern and control all things, and that's our God.

Remember God's dominion, Joshua says.

Look at verse 13 again a little closely.

He says, I have given you a land for which you did not labor.

That's dominion.

And cities which you did not build.

And that's where you dwell.

You see, I want you to understand, church, God is the great causer of our circumstances.

Our circumstances didn't happen by chance.

They happened because of God's great cause.

We see it in the very first book, in the very first verse, it says, In the beginning, God created.

God did that.

We didn't do that, we didn't create our circumstance.

God created.

And in Colossians 1:16, it says this about him.

Colossians 1:16

In him all things consist.

They were by him and for him and through him, and in him they all happen and consist.

It happens because of him.

He is the great causer of our circumstances.

My children will sometimes say, You can't have that, Daddy.

That's mine.

I say, Is that right?

Did you know that you're mine?

Well, yeah.

So is that really yours?

Because as I look at it, if you're mine, everything that you have is also mine.

Am I right, parents?

Right?

I thought I'd get a few amens on that.

It's mine.

Listen, nothing that happens happens as an accident outside of what God causes.

God is the great causer of our circumstances.

He's also the great commander of our circumstances.

He controls it.

He's sovereign over it.

And he's also the great coordinator of our circumstances.

There's no accident that happens under God's watch.

Listen, church, your life is not by chance.

It's a design.

It's not an accident that Joshua became commander of Israel.

It wasn't an accident that he was the assistant and priest of Moses.

It wasn't an accident that his best friend happened to be Caleb.

Where are the only mentions of Caleb in the Bible?

It says he was holy, committed to following Jesus Christ.

It was no accident that the Lord said to Moses, Tell Joshua, only be strong and very courageous.

And then in Joshua chapter 1, the same angel of the Lord came to Joshua four times.

Joshua 1 · chapter mention

You can look there in Joshua chapter 1.

Joshua 1 · chapter mention

Look at what he says.

This is important for you to see in your Bible.

Joshua chapter 1.

Joshua 1 · chapter mention

Look at what it says.

In verses 6, 7, 9, and 18, it says the same phrase.

Verse 6 at the very start be strong and of good courage.

At the start of verse 7, only be strong and very courageous that you may observe to do according to the law.

Verse number 9, be strong.

Have I not commanded you, be strong and of good courage.

And at the end of the chapter in verse 18, the last thing he says, only be strong and of good courage.

Is it an accident that Joshua was such a man of resolute courage?

I don't think so.

And in verse 5, 9, and 17, this is how Joshua got it, his courage.

This is how he could stand and have that fortitude.

Look at what it says following this.

He doesn't say, just be strong and be of good courage.

You can do this on your own.

He says, verse 5, again, 9 and 17.

How can you do that?

I will be with you.

Look at the end of verse 5.

So I will be with you like I was with Moses.

I will not leave you or forsake you.

Verse 9, it says, The Lord your God is with you wherever you go.

And in verse 17, just as we heeded Moses in all things, so he will heed you.

Only the Lord your God will be with you.

He'll be with you.

You see, Joshua understood God's dominion and his dependability because he knew who his father was.

Do you ever just look at your circumstances and feel a little bit overwhelmed?

Feel a little bit like the struggle is exasperating.

Like you can't catch your breath, you can't get above water.

I feel like that.

Like in this rally cry.

I think we're given the formula of how to overcome.

He says, reflect.

Reflect on who your father is.

Don't focus on the circumstance, the battle.

31 battles.

Don't focus on what's ahead as the circumstance, but focus on the Father.

See, when I focus on the Father, I want to read to you this reading.

It says this.

He's the beginning and the end.

He's the keeper of creation and the creator of all.

He's the architect of the universe and the manager of all time.

He always was, always is, and always will be.

He's unmoved, unchanged, undefeated, and never undone.

He was bruised but brought healing.

He was pierced but eased pain.

He was persecuted but brought feed him.

He was dead and brings life.

He's risen to bring power and he reigns to bring peace.

You see, the world can't understand him.

Armies can't defeat him.

Schools can't explain him, and leaders can't ignore him.

He is light, he is love, he is longevity, and he is Lord.

He is goodness and kindness and faithfulness.

He is God.

He is holy and righteous and powerful and pure.

His ways are right, his word eternal.

His will unchanged, and his mind is on us, church.

I serve him because his bond is love, his yoke is easy, his burden is light, and his goal for us is abundant life.

I follow him because he's the wisdom of the wise, the power of the powerful, the ancient of days, and the ruler of rulers.

He's the leader of all leaders, he'll never leave you, forsake you, never mislead you or forget you.

Never overlook you, he'll forgive you.

And when you're weak, he's strong.

When you're lost, he's your way.

When you're afraid, he's your courage.

When you're stump when you stumble, he'll steady you.

When you're hurt, he's going to heal you.

When you're broken, he will mend you.

And when you're blind, he will lead you.

When you're hungry, he will feed you.

When you face trials, he's with you.

When you face persecution, he shields you.

When you face problems, he will comfort you.

When you face loss, he'll provide.

He's everything for everybody, everywhere, every time, and every way.

Why don't you give him a clap this morning?

Why don't you high five somebody next to you and say, He is good?

He is good.

Now high five, your second choice.

He's good.

You see, John is Joshua finishes a beautiful, resounding remembrance charge of the magnificence of God's dominion and his dependability.

And then in verse 14, he switches lanes to the conflict.

The conflict.

So part two here is the conflict that's at hand.

Joshua reminds him of his goodness, his dominion, and who he's been.

And he says, But I've got to tell you, there's still conflict.

And in his age, at 84 years, 85 years old, he'd been warring with these people, he'd been battling with these people, and there's still this conflict.

The Hebrew word for conflict there is Saba, which means literal warfare.

The warfare that's still going on.

When I was about 23 years old, I worked as a dispatch manager for a moving company before God called me into ministry.

And I was over about 90 guys, and uh it was kind of a rough job.

It taught me a lot about management and um how to handle people and problems.

And anyway, one particular afternoon, guys would go out in the morning about 7 o'clock to go do a move.

And it was hot, it was hard work, laborsome, but most of the time in the summer, if you got finished around two or three o'clock, you had a good chance you'd have to go do another job that could last four, six, eight hours.

And so um, anyway, that was a known thing, and um guys would come back, and sometimes guys would take these long, late breaks, lunch after their you know, job ended at two o'clock, and they try to miss that that next move.

And so, but I was there planted as a dispatcher until every job got out.

And so, to be fair, the whatever the next truck came rolling in was, they would get the job.

And so I get I wouldn't pass up anybody.

I wouldn't say, Well, you guys can go ahead and go home.

Somebody else might want to do this.

So we had about 25 trucks rolling, so somebody would come back.

Well, this one particular day, uh, a guy named Daryl came back, and I noticed something kind of bad when he came rolling into the yard, and there was only one man in the cab, Daryl, and not the other two men.

I'm like, what is happening here?

And so he pulls up, and I've got a clipboard, and I start walking to him because he pulls over, and you're supposed to come back to our window, check in, see if there was a job to do, and then go get your truck straight.

Well, he was going over and getting his truck straight, and so I walk out there.

I gotta give you a little background here.

Mind you, Daryl is about six foot five, maybe 300 pounds.

And I'm me, okay?

And so I go walking to Daryl, and uh I said, Daryl, where's your crew?

He said, I dropped them off at the bus stop.

Thought they wanted to go home.

Like, why would you drop them off at the bus stop?

You know that there's always more work.

And uh I said, I've got another job for you to do.

I said, I'm gonna have to send a couple of the warehouse men with you.

And he got hot, let me tell you.

Daryl got fired up.

He said, I'm not doing no job today.

He said, I'm not doing that job.

He said, I got tickets to the ball game.

He had tickets to an Eagles game, football game, um, which it was preseason, so who cares?

But, anyways, he said, I said, Daryl, you didn't turn any paperwork into me showing that you had time off or requesting a day off.

I said, That's invalid if you have plans.

I said, You've got a job to do and you know your job.

And either you do this job or you're quitting your job.

I said that to him.

I dropped the clipboard on the back of his truck and I began to walk.

And I heard Daryl.

I heard I literally heard his steps.

And so I began to move faster and faster back toward my office.

And by the time I got to our dispatch window, which was probably about 50 yards, Daryl was right behind me and he starts cussing me.

I mean, he starts lacing into me and he calls me a stupid college jerk.

You know, I just graduated college and he's going on and on.

I mean, he's in, I mean, he's not in my face, he's over, but he's going, and I'm like, just standing there.

And I'm telling you, inside my heart is like, and I'm like, what's he gonna do?

And so finally I just muster what I can.

I said, Daryl, it's not personal.

This is your job.

Either you're gonna do your job or you're quitting your job.

I said, You're not forced to have to do this, it's your choice.

And I began to walk away, and I promise Daryl raised his hand back, and he would have punched a hole right through me.

I'd be standing here dead today.

So Daryl pulled his hand back, and my boss, who's about his size, not quite as heavy, dives through the dispatch window.

He sees this happening, and he's a big man, and he grabs a hold of Daryl, and I'm like, that's right, Daryl, you're lucky.

You're the you're about to get it.

No, not really.

But the conflict was real, and it was this there's one side or the other.

Do your job or don't do your job, but it's your job.

It's just what you sign up for.

And so Joshua says this in chapter 24, verse 14.

Now, therefore, fear the Lord, serve him in sincerity and in truth, and put away the gods which your father served on the other side of the river and in Egypt.

Serve the Lord.

He says, Listen, there's still a conflict, and this is what you gotta do.

You need to fear the Lord.

Proverbs 1:7 says, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of all wisdom.

Proverbs 1:7

That we revere the Lord, fear him, and that's that word Lord is the capital Lord, Jehovah Lord, the covenant God, the God that demands our allegiance.

Listen, if we don't give our allegiance to that Lord, we will have conflict.

If your child doesn't show you respect, do you not have conflict naturally?

They don't give you proper respect.

And so, he says, Fear the Lord, capital, the Lord, Jehovah, our God, fear him, revere him, give him respect.

Not out of a mighty hand of an iron hand that's forcing down, but this hand of love that has been for us.

He's saying, Fear that Lord, revere the one that loves us enough to lead us into the promised land, the one that's loved us enough to lead us into battle and give us these victories.

Fear that Lord.

And here's the problem: we don't fear him because we make him lowercase lord.

The sometimes Lord.

And that's what Israel has done.

And their attack and what's going on, the the real problem is a relationship issue.

When you only need someone when there is turmoil, there's a relationship issue.

You only call on a friend when there's a problem, there's a relationship issue.

They didn't revere the Lord, so there's natural conflict.

And it's still, after 85 years after God led them through, it's still existing.

It's still happening, he says, Fear the Lord.

Then he says, Don't only f fear the Lord, follow the Lord.

And he says how to do that.

He says, follow him in sincerity and in truth.

Follow him wholeheartedly.

I want you to turn to Revelation chapter 2.

Revelation 2 · chapter mention

He says, fear him, revere him, and follow him.

But we get this idea that why Joshua is even saying this is because there's some spiritual fakery.

There's some hypocrisy still in the camp.

And he feels the cause to weed this out, and he says, You gotta fear him, you gotta be sincere, you gotta be honest.

And in Revelation chapter 2, verses 2 through 4, I want you to look at this letter to a church.

Revelation 2:2–4

It says this I know your works, church, your labor, your patience, and then you that you cannot bear those who are evil.

And you have tested those who say they are apostles and are not, and have found them liars.

And you have persevered and have patience and have labored for my name's sake, and you have not become weary.

Look at this.

Nevertheless, I have this against you that you've left your first love.

Left his first love.

There's a relationship problem.

Listen.

At this age that I'm at, I can't imagine leaving my first love in the relationship I have with my wife.

At this age, I can promise you, I I have a hard time understanding, and I know that it happens in relationships and people go through divorce and it's heavy and it's it's it's hard.

But people that have been married for years and years go through this struggle and they divorce.

Listen, there's nobody else that's gonna have seen me at my best when I was 19 or 20, has seen the best of me.

And when things get bad can look back and say, Well, it used there was those years, right?

He used to look good, he used to be kind of funny, all right?

It ain't gonna get no better.

I'm just gonna say, listen, as I age, I'm not getting any funnier, I'm not getting any better looking.

Gray is happening, okay?

I just my first love, I'm not gonna have those experiences with anybody else that I had when I was 20 and when I was 30.

I don't I don't have any of those with somebody else.

That was my first love.

And so this is what he says.

I have this against you.

You've left your first love.

There's a scripture later on that says, Restore unto me the joy of my salvation.

When you are fired up about what God has done for you, he says, follow him sincerely, truthfully, be excited about him, love the Lord.

We have something to love.

We're not just following and revere him because he says so, but because there's this relationship.

So he says, fear the Lord and follow the Lord.

Then he says, and forsake idols.

You've got to forsake idols.

Galatians 5 17 says this that the flesh and the spirit are at war.

It's like a literal tug of war in our life.

That's the conflict that's raging.

And as we wake up each day, the flesh says, This is what I want, and the spirit says, This is what we need, and we go at war.

And sometimes in our day, that tug of war looks to one side or the other.

And so there's this tug of war that goes on, and he says, You've got to starve the flesh.

You're gonna have to forsake idols in your life.

One man put an article together and he said, Is it Baal or is it Baal?

Is it mammon or is it money?

Is it Moloch?

Or is it acceptance?

Or man's approval?

You see, today's word for idolatry is addiction.

I'm addicted to getting a job promotion so much that I'm gonna neglect my family.

I will idolize a position and the money and the prominence that it might bring, and in so doing, neglect my calling and my children and my wife or my husband so that I can get this.

That's an idol.

Well, feed a habit so much that it destroys our body.

That's an idol.

We have to have a house that has constant upgrading so we're accepted.

That's an idol.

We gotta put our kids on championship teams.

It's an idol.

Church, it's high time we take a real look at the truth.

We have an idol epidemic.

The second commandment of the Ten Commandments says, have no other gods before me.

And I'm sad to say, but in the church today, it's just the truth.

We have gods before him.

We don't want to call it that.

I want to read to you a quote from Kyle Eidelman from the book Gods at War, Small G.

It says this.

Imagine a man has been coughing constantly.

This cough keeps him up half the night and interrupts any conversation he has that lasts more than a minute.

The cough is so unrelenting that he goes to the doctor.

The doctor runs some tests.

He says it's lung cancer.

Now imagine the doctor knows how tough the news will be to handle.

So he doesn't tell his patient about cancer.

Instead, he writes a prescription for some strong cough medicine and tells him that he should be feeling better soon.

The man is delighted with that prognosis, and sure enough, he sleeps much better that night.

The cough syrup seems to have solved his problem.

Meanwhile, very quietly, the cancer is eating away at his body.

Many of us today are coughing, struggling, hurting, stressing, cheating, lusting, spending, quitting, avoiding, searching.

I can't stop coughing.

But we want to talk about the symptoms rather than the illness, which is idolatry.

There's an idol problem.

And in order to solve that idol problem, we've got to do the third point, which is make a choice.

Make a choice.

In Joshua chapter 24, verse 15, it says this.

Joshua 24:15

And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourself this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your father served that were on the other side of the river, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell.

But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

And the word choice there in that scripture is the Hebrew word bakorah, which is to select, or as one who enjoins.

When we make this choice, we enjoin ourselves.

We lock together with something.

We make this choice, and he says, choose now.

Choose this day, choose for right now.

So the choice we have to make is to choose for now.

See, Galatians 6, 7, and 8 says this about us.

We sow to the flesh and we're going to reap corruption.

Sow to the spirit and we'll reap eternal life.

What are you choosing now to sow?

Students that are here, what choices are you making today to reap a future?

Parents, what choices are you sowing today to strengthen your family unit?

Grandparents, what choices are you sowing today to reap a family legacy?

Dave Ramsey, the financial guru, says this we live like no one else, so we will live like no one else.

We have to choose.

When I was a boy, my father, a baker, introduced me to the wonders of song, Luciano Pavarotti says.

He urged me to work very hard to develop my voice.

He had a professional tenor in his hometown in Italy, and he took me as a pupil.

He enrolled in a teacher's college.

On graduating, I asked my father, shall I be a teacher or a singer?

Luciano, my father replied, If you try to sit on two chairs, you will fall between them.

For life, you must choose one chair.

He says, I chose one.

It took seven years of study and frustration before I made my first professional appearance.

It took another seven to reach the Metropolitan Opera.

And now I think, whether it's laying bricks, writing a book, whatever we choose, we should give ourselves to it.

Commitment, that's the key.

Choose one chair.

Elijah said it this way.

How long will you hesitate between two opinions?

If the Lord is God, follow him.

But if Baal is God, follow him.

Daniel said, If our God is not the God and does not save us from this fiery furnace, then let it be known we still will not bow to your gods.

Matthew Henry said this those that are bound for heaven must be willing to swim against the stream.

They must not do as most do, but as the best do.

We have to choose this day.

This day.

For our family, for our future, for our legacy, for this church.

You have to make a choice.

And we have to choose for eternity.

Choose now, choose for eternity.

Matthew 7 13 says this.

Enter in at the narrow gate.

For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction.

And many enter in through it.

See, salvation is a choice.

And living for Christ is a choice.

The Bible says it's real broad what the world is doing.

A lot of them today are boating and hunting.

And foot more, probably not hunting.

Fishing.

A lot of other things than choosing to be where you're.

At.

Why?

There's an idol problem.

And they don't want to admit it.

They don't want to say it because idols a lot of times look like good things.

Listen, if I can justify and say, well, my family needs this.

And my family should have that.

And we'll have a family devotion together.

That's all good and well.

Listen, you don't have to be in this building to be serving the Lord.

But if you're serving the Lord, you'll be in this building.

I can promise you that.

Choose.

It's a choice.

The Bible says, lay not up for yourself treasures on this earth.

That moth and rust doth corrupt and break through, steeves, thieves break through and steal.

But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven.

I can promise you, church, we need a lot more soul winners than sports heroes.

We need a lot more Bible readers than software engineers.

We need a lot more fishermen that are fishing men than fishing.

We need a lot more choosers of Christianity.

But I can tell you this: you have the power.

You've got the power of choice.

And it's your choice.

He says, You can go for those idols like our fathers before.

You can do that.

Absolutely, you can.

And he says it almost like when he's saying, fear the Lord, like it's a ridiculous choice.

Like this God who loved us, this God who brought us to life, this God who did all these things for us.

He's the one.

He's dependable.

He has dominion and he's for us.

And you can be for him, and you should choose him.

But if you want to, you can choose another way.

When this life is over, and some people chose not Christianity.

He says, choose for your eternity.

And choose for your house.

Choose for your house.

There's an interesting question that I came across.

Who was Joshua's son?

In Joshua 24, 27, we see that scripture kind of shares that he was the last in his line, the last of the house of Joshua.

And so he's acknowledging those faithful servants of the faith.

The people of faith.

Those in the body of Christ.

He says, as for me and my house, as for me and my church, God's church, the body, we're going to serve the Lord.

He says, as for us, and I promise you, CCW, that's what we need right here.

It's a church that's a lighthouse and a community, saying to people, as for right here, we're serving Jesus Westover.

As for right here, Chelsea, we're serving the Lord.

I don't care what these other people are doing and looking to.

And so I want you to journey with me as we come to a close, to this ending, with Joshua, the commander, who has seen so much, who'd been full of such great courage, and he brings the people together and see the whole picture.

At Shechem, the remembrance charge, and he hits them with verses 14 and 15.

And he says, look at it again.

If it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourself whom you'll serve, whether those gods before, in the land that you dwell before.

But as for me and my house, he says, the line is drawn right here.

Listen, it's this side and it's this side.

There's those that are gonna live for idols, and there's those that are gonna live for God.

It's one or the other, because the Bible says you can't live for God and men.

The Bible says that you're either for me or you're against me.

You're with him or you're against him.

There's no spot on the fence.

We don't get to say I'm gonna sit here and hang on in case cancer comes.

I'm gonna sit here and hang on to God in case I need him.

We're either for him or against him.

And he says, this is the line.

He says, and as for me, listen, I'm wanting you to choose him because he loves you.

Choose him because he sent his son to die for you.

Choose him for what he did.

I'm not saying that you don't have a choice, that you don't have a free will, because that wouldn't be a God of love.

He said he loves you so much.

He chose you before you could even choose him.

He says, but the line is drawn.

And I know even so, some will not.

He says, but please, stop caring about what everybody else thinks.

Stop caring about what's so popular.

Stop caring about what money's gonna bring.

Stop caring about the idols.

He says, fear him.

Forsake the idols.

And he says, Let me tell you something.

As for me and my house, we're gonna serve the Lord.

We're gonna serve the Lord.

That's what we're gonna do.

Thanks again for tuning into this week's message.

We pray that your life has been changed.

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We hope you have a wonderful day, and again, God bless you.